Too Tangled To Separate Us From You
by Eternal Love Song
Summary: Midoriya and Shinso try to become friends wit Hatsume, which is a frustrating endeavor. Becoming something more turns out to be much easier. [A prequel to We Built This Machine For Us] [Established Shindeku, Protective Shinso, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationships, Friends To Lovers, Polyamory, OT3]


Hatsume ignored the knock at the door. She was elbow deep in her latest invention and the time it would take to carefully pull away open the door before returning to her project didn't really seem worth the effort. Her hands were a little slippery with grease, meaning that would also need to wipe off her hands to be able to grip the door properly and she couldn't remember where she had left her rag. Whoever it was could let themselves in if it was important and if it wasn't, they'd probably just leave and she wouldn't have to deal with it.

She heard the door slowly creep open behind her as whoever came knocking hesitantly entered the room. "Um... Ha-Hatsume..." the voice called out quietly. She was too distracted to notice that it was Midoriya right away and he'd called her name a few times before it really registered.

"Oh, Midoriya," she finally looked up to smile at him. "What brings you here? Did you need something?" She was hesitant to stop what she was working on if he didn't. She was really close to a break through, she was certain of it.

"Um, well..." She could see him fidgeting nervously out the corner of her eye. "We had plans, remember?"

"Oh? Did we?" She pulled her hands from her project and wiped them on her pants absentmindedly. "I don't remembering you asking for anything lately. Was I supposed to be making something for you? Or maybe you were testing something?"

"N-no, nothing like that," he muttered.

Hatsume moved closer to him, smiling as she peered into his face. "Then you came to ask me to build you something? An upgrade, perhaps?"

"No," Midoriya sighed, ducking his head as his face lit up in a blush. "We were supposed to have lunch together. An hour ago. When you didn't show up I was kinda worried."

"Oh? Ah, sorry, Midoriya. I got so caught up that it slipped my mind entirely," she admitted.

Midoriya winced, wrapping an arm around himself and hunching his shoulders. "Yeah, Shinso said you probably forgot." He bit his lip before adding, "You know, if you didn't want to..."

"It's not that I didn't want to," she assured him. "I just... forgot. Hey, we can go right now if you want? I'll pay, to make it up to you."

Midoriya looked at her hesitantly, his eyes lingering on the stains on her pants where she'd wiped her hands not minutes earlier. "You, um, don't really seemed dressed to go out anyplace."

Hatsume frowned as she looked down at herself. She didn't really have a problem with how she looked, but she knew some places wouldn't let her in if she was a little messy. "I... guess you're right. Um, you pick a date. I'll treat you and make up for today."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You don't have to if you'd rather not."

"I've already made up my mind," she told him. "I have to make up for standing you up, so I'm gonna treat you.!"

"Alright." A hesitant smile spread across his face. "I'll ask Shinso when he's free and send you a message to confirm."

"Perfect!"

"Are you sure you really want to?" he asked once more.

"I said I'm sure!" she repeated loudly. "Don't worry about a thing but the date, Midoriya! I'll take care of everything."

Finally, Midoriya's smile returned to it's normal level of cheer. "I look forward to it, then."

* * *

Shinso didn't have Midoriya in his room very often. Shinso wasn't really fond of having people in his personal space that often, even when that person was his boyfriend. Today was one of the rare occasions that Shinso felt the need to pull Midoriya all the way to his room. He could tell that his boyfriend was both tired and disappointed after first being stood up by and then having to deal with Mei Hatsume. The girl was a handful at the best of time, anyone that spoke to her for longer than two minutes could tell that, and Midoriya wasn't exactly the best at dealing with forceful personalities.

This was different. This wasn't just Midoriya being pushed around a little as she tried too enthusiastically to help him, this wasn't just him being nervous and jittery trying to make a new friend, this was him being actively lead on and stood up and Shinso hated it. He hated watching his boyfriend look put out and uncertain over someone that was supposed to be his friend.

He pushed Midoriya onto the bed before sliding to the floor beside him. Midoriya didn't even argue the treatment as he usually would, just sighed heavily as let himself relax on the bed. They sat in silence for a while. Shinso was used to the quiet, but it was a little odd to be with Midoriya and not have him either talking a mile a minute about heroes or tripping incomprehensibly over his words.

Shinso slumped further against the bed. "I don't know why you insist hanging out with that grease monkey when she just cancels on you all the time."

"We're friends, Shinso."

"Yeah, well, she's a bad friend," Shinso told him.

Midoriya was quiet. It wasn't like him not to respond when Shinso said something about his friends. Shinso was right about Hatsume being a bad friend, but it wasn't right for Midoriya to think so, too.

"Shinso," Midoriya whispered. "Do you think... maybe she doesn't want to be my friend?"

Shinso moved onto his knees, propping his elbows on the bed so that he could look at Midoriya. "Anyone that doesn't want to be friends with you is a fool that deserves to be left to their fate," he told him. "You're an amazing friend, Midoriya. Don't you dare let her make you doubt that."

Midoriya offered him a small, shy smile. "Thanks."

"I'm not just saying it to cheer you up," Shinso told him, poking him in the cheek.

"I know."

Shinso sighed and laid his head down beside Midoriya. "We'll try this again," he said. "If she's more than ten minutes late, we'll just eat without her and I'll treat you myself."

"You don't have to do that," Midoriya told him.

"No, but I will if she doesn't show." He leaned his head against Midoriya's arms, nuzzling it slightly. "So don't worry about it, alright?"

Midoriya smiled. "Alright, Shin, I won't worry."

Shinso blushed at the nickname, burying his face further in his boyfriend's arm. "Good," he murmured.

* * *

"Hatsume?" Midoriya asked as he peaked his head in to her lab.

"Midoriya!" she greeted cheerfully, throwing the door wider and pulling him further into her lab. "Do you need something? Want another upgrade to your costume?"

"N-no, nothing like that," he answered.

"Oh? What is it then?" she questioned.

Midoriya held out a canned drink and packaged bread. "Um, I just thought I'd bring you something. I figured you would probably skip lunch, but it's not healthy to skip meals like that all the time."

"That's really thoughtful of you, Midoriya! Now that you mention it, I am really hungry." She took the bread from his hands, removing it from the package and digging in immediately. "This is really good."

He smiled at her. "Really? I wasn't sure if you would like it."

"I do," she told him. "I'm not that picky of an eater."

"W-well, I don't want to keep you from working,"

She grabbed his arm as she stuffed the last of the bread into her mouth. There was a pause as she chewed and swallowed her food, before she could speak. "You don't have to rush off," she told him. "Why don't you stay and keep me company?"

"If you're sure I won't be in the way?"

"Not at all," she told him. She reached for the drink, opening it and downing half of it in one go. "I'll tell you about my latest project."

He smiled at her and Hatsume realized she really was happy to have the company.

* * *

Hatsume was a smoking heap on the ground when the door burst open. It was pretty late, late enough that she wasn't expecting any other support course students to be using the lab. The smoke was too thick for her to immediately tell who was at the door and she coughed a bit as she tried to pat out her clothes. Her failed project was still smoking at her feet, but that was alright. She could just make another one and this time, she would be more careful that it didn't explode on her.

"Hatsume, you unkempt wrench monkey, where are you?" Shinso shouted.

She picked herself off the ground slowly, patting herself to make sure nothing was smoldering or on fire. "What's Shinso doing here?" she questioned out loud.

"I came here to get you," he answered. "But you're obviously too busy trying to blow yourself to remember that we had plans."

"Sorry, I was busy," she told him. "Whatever it is, can it wait?"

"Don't make plans that you have no intention of keeping!" he yelled.

"I wasn't planning to break our plans," she told him. "I just got busy."

"You always get busy," Shinso replied, folding his arms and glaring at her. Hatsume glared back. She didn't usually get bothered by people, but Shinso had a way of pushing her buttons easy. "And for what?" he asked. "More failure inventions that blow up in your face? Half the crap you make doesn't even work in the first place and yet you blow us off so that you waste away in here?"

"My inventions aren't failures," she replied. "And of course I'd want to spend more time making my babies even better. Maybe if you spent more time honing your skills you'd be in the hero course by now."

Shinso ground his teeth together, his glare intensifying. "Hatsume, you're a terrible friend. You're worse than me. You might even be worse than that explosive jerk from Midoriya's class. You care more about this junk that you do people's feelings." He stomped forward and slammed a hand on the table. When he pulled away, there was a piece of paper on the table.

"What's that supposed to be?" she asked.

"Midoriya felt bad that we went to the movies without you. He thought you might have a better time remembering plans if you had the tickets in advance." Shinso turned his back on her, but she could hear the anger still in his voice. "Midoriya's really too nice for you. I shouldn't have agreed to drop these off, but I didn't want you to hurt him anymore with your careless attitude."

Hatsume was torn between anger and guilt. She balled her hands into fist. "Careless..." she repeated quietly. "It's a group outing this time, so Midoriya won't have time to be hurt when you forget to show up. Again."

With that said, Shinso stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Hatsume stayed frozen in place a long time after he left. When she was able to force herself into motion again, she made an invention so that she wouldn't forget the date. And on the promised day, she even made sure to shower and stay out of her lab, lest she be tempted to lose herself to her work again.

* * *

Shinso woke up when his alarm went off at eight. He was in Midoriya's bed, arms folded over the text book he was supposed to reading, a blanket laid carefully on his shoulders. He reached out sleepily for his phone to turn off his alarm before lifting his arms over his head ina stretch.

"Oh, you're awake?" Midoriya asked. He was smiling at Shinso from his desk, pen still in hand.

"Let me guess," Shinso said around a yawn. "Hatsume didn't show up."

Midoriya shook his head, a small sheepish smile on his lips. "She remembered to text us this time though. She sent a message ten minutes ago apologizing and offered to show up anyway, but I told her it was late and she should just go to bed."

"As if that lunatic would ever go to bed on time," Shinso muttered.

"You're not mad this time?"

"Nah, I've figured Hatsume out." He stood up from the bed, shoving his unread text book into his bag. "She's a flake. It's her natural state. Getting mad at her for this would be like getting mad that a cat knocks things off your shelf. Yeah, it's annoying, but after a certain point you have to make your peace with it."

"I'm glad that you're getting along better," Midoriya said.

Shinso shrugged. "She's a little easier to deal with when she isn't making you cry."

Midoriya turned red and Shinso smirked at him. "She never mad me cry!"

"Midoriya, everything makes you cry. You're really easy." He put an arm around his boyfriend's shoulders. "It's the principal of it though. It really annoyed me when I though she didn't care, but I guess she's a little better now."

"She told me you show up without me sometimes now."

"I just have free time when you don't," Shinso said.

"You can just say that you're friends," Midoriya told him.

Shinso stuck out his tongue and refused to admit anything of the sort.

* * *

Shinso was quick and quiet as he snuck into the lab, trying to keep the door as quiet as possible when he did so. There was only the softest click to announce his presence and he was surprised to see that the sound caught Hatsume's attention. It was still weird to him to see her actually look up from her work to acknowledge when he or Midoriya arrived, but she'd been doing so on a near constant basis for a nearly a month.

"Don't mind me," he told her. "I'm just hiding from these guys I beat in a bet earlier. Sore losers, you know?"

"Ah," she nodded as she went back to working on her project. "Well, your usual spots clear, so feel free to hang around."

"Thanks." His 'usual spot' as she called it, was a space on the table that she cleared for him. It was out of sight of the door, relatively clean, and had served as his perch for the last few visits he'd paid her. He hopped onto the table now, pulling out a book from his bag and preparing to do homework until he thought his pursuers were likely to have given up. "So what are you working on?" he questioned.

"So you know how we were talking about your quirk last time?"

"You mean how you decided to ask me fifty questions?" he corrected. "I remember."

"So I was thinking about how your quirk works and what might helpful, so I'm working on a prototype for something that might be helpful to you."

Shinso looked up from his book, mouth hanging open. It was only after he realized that it had been quiet for too long that he realized he didn't respond to her. His thought felt dry when he swallowed and his face a little hot. "O-oh? I, uh, wouldn't have... isn't this sort of thing usually for Midoriya?" he questioned.

Hatsume shrugged. "You want to be hero, too. Why wouldn't I help you?"

Shinso tried to bury himself in his book, despite being sure Hatsume was too busy to turn and look at him. "You probably just wanted something to keep you busy."

"I always something to keep myself busy," Hatsume agreed. "But this keeps me busy and helps you. Right?" She turned to smile at him.

Shinso flushed bright red behind his book, holding it up even higher until he couldn't see her anymore. "I don't even know what is it yet, so how would I know?"

Hatsume laughed. "Maybe I'll keep it a secret until it's ready."

"Whatever. You'll probably tell Midoriya the first chance you get," he mumbled. Her laughter drowned out his words as he stayed hidden behind his book.

* * *

Shinso wasn't usually one for public displays of affection. He wasn't all that big on cuddling or hand holding, and Midoriya would probably freak out if he did. The thought was amusing enough that Shinso sometimes considered it, but they hadn't been dating that long and he didn't want to make his boyfriend freak out.

It was for that reason that it was really surprising when Midoriya found him outside during lunch and practically flung himself into Shinso's arms. Shinso dropped his phone as his arms automatically moved around his boyfriend. "Whoa! What's wrong Midoriya?"

Midoriya was hiding his face in Shinso chest, grabbing onto Shinso's shirt as if he was afraid that Shinso would leave him or disappear. "I made a fool of myself in front of Hatsume," came the mumbled reply.

"Impossible," Shinso told him. "And even if you had, I doubt she would notice."

"I'm serious, Shinso."

"So am I," he told Midoriya. "Hatsume is a lunatic. She wouldn't know weird if it bit her on the brain. Whatever you did, I'm sure it's fine."

"It's not fine! It's not fine at all!" Midoriya insisted.

Shinso sighed. He wasn't going to be able to calm his boyfriend down this way. He bent down to retrieve his phone before wrapping one arm around Midoriya. "Let's talk about this in my room."

If they went to Midoriya's room the whole class would probably be all over them trying to figure out what was wrong. Neither Midoriya nor Shinso needed that kind of attention. And there was always the chance Midoriya's friend would blame him for whatever was wrong with his boyfriend, and Shinso didn't want to go through that ordeal again. At least no one would bother them in the gen ed dorms.

Midoriya nodded his assent and allowed Shinso to heard him to the gen ed dorms. Once they were in Shinso's room, door locked and a blanket wrapped tightly around Midoriya's shoulder, Shinso joined him on the bed. "Alright, what's the big bad thing that has apparently ruined your image to Hatsume?" he asked.

Midoriya pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "You remember... what we talked about?" he asked quietly.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that, Midoriya. We talk about a lot of things."

"About Hatsume." Midoriya's voice only got quieter.

Shinso leaned closer to hear him better. "You mean about your crush on her?" Midoriya looked up with a betrayed expression and watery eyes. "Alright, alright!" Shinso lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Our crush on her. I remember. What about it?"

"I... I talked to Hatsume."

"You actually did it?" he asked in surprise.

"I told you that I wanted to!" Midoriya yelled.

"Yeah, but I didn't think you really would," Shinso told him. "That's... really brave of you Midoriya."

He seemed to relax a little at Shinso's words, uncurling from the ball he was in and staring forlornly at his lap. "Yeah, well, she didn't think. She didn't answer me at all."

"Really?"

Midoriya nodded.

Shino leaned back on his heels as he considered this. "Maybe she needs time to think on it. If she doesn't answer you soon, I'll talk to her."

"You will?" Midoriya questioned, looking at him with large imploring eyes.

Shinso rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "She's my crush, too," he admitted. "It's only fair that we both confess."

Midoriya smiled at him before asking, "You don't think I messed everything up?"

"Not a chance," Shinso told him. "If anything, she probably didn't even realize you were confessing. You're both equally dense, after all."

"Th-that's not nice!" Midoriya objected.

Shinso pat his boyfriend's head. "I'll take care of everything, Midoriya. You can count on me for things like this."

Midoriya laughed onto him, eyes watery. "Shinso!"

"Don't cry on me, Midoriya."

"But... but..."

Shinso sighed and resigned himself to his fate as a soon to be soggy boyfriend.

* * *

Hatsume looked up when Shinso walked through the door. He was staring at his phone, something that she found he did pretty often, but he'd proved himself to be pretty good at multitasking when he wanted to be. He shut the down behind himself without looking up and easily maneuvered through the mess to get to her side. She made a noise of objection as he swept a few things off the table beside her current project to sit on the desk, but he didn't seem overly concerned by it.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Sitting," he replied, still not looking at her.

"That's not what I meant."

"Texting," he added. After a few more taps to his phone, he looked up at her. "I didn't think what I did usually bothered you."

"It doesn't."

"Could have fooled me," he answered with a smirk. "Anyway, are you busy?"

Hatsume found herself smiling at him before she realized it. "If I was, you would have dropped everything I was doing to the ground."

"Pity that," he answered flippantly.

"I'm assuming you want something, right? You don't usually make this much fuss unless you want my attention."

"Yeah, I'm a messenger, of sorts," Shinso admitted. He leaned back slightly, foldin his arms over his chest. "Midoriya confessed to you the other day, did you know?"

"Huh? Confessed what?"

"That he has a crush on you?"

"What?"

"He wants to date you," Shinso clarified. "He was upset because he thought he did something embarrassing."

"I don't think he did," she admitted. "I don't remember he doing any sort of confessing, either."

Shinso laughed. "I thought that might be the case. Which is why I'm here. Are you interested? In dating us, I mean."

"Us?" she questioned.

"Midoriya and me," he told her. "We're a couple, you know."

"Oh? I... I didn't realize."

"You're denser than a brick, Hatsume."

"Yeah, well, bricks make good foundation," she countered. There was a pause as she studied him. "You're really asking me out? On a date?"

"No, asking you out on dates is kind of a lost cause, don't you think? We're asking you to be in a relationship with us both. You can do that right?"

"Uh, I don't see why not."

"Do you want to?" Shinso pressed.

Hatsume turned the idea over in her head a few times. Dating would only be a distraction to you and she didn't think it would be all that interesting. She already saw Shinso and Midoriya more than anyone else, there was no need to have anything complicated tied up with that, right? Maybe she liked Shinso and Midoriya more than anyone else, but...

But...

"Yes," she answered, completely surprising herself. "Yeah, I want to."

"Great!" Shinso grinned, hopping off the table. "I'll tell Midoriya. See you around, Mei."

He was out of the room before she had the chance to say anything more, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She... wasn't sure what actually made her say yes, but.. she couldn't say that she was uninterested in them.

"Hmm... this will take further study," she concluded. After all, if she didn't conduct a proper experiment, how would she ever find her answer?


End file.
